News Highlights

Minnesota State Mankato Students Get to Go Dutch

Minnesota State University, Mankato students have the opportunity this year to work on real-world advertising campaigns for companies in the Netherlands while earning credits toward their degrees abroad.

2012-09-20
Amanda Dyslin, Mankato Free Press, 9-15-2012

MANKATO — Minnesota State University, Mankato students have the opportunity this year to work on real-world advertising campaigns for companies in the Netherlands while earning credits toward their degrees abroad.

Five students already are studying at HAN University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. A four- day recruiting workshop this week at Minnesota State Mankato aimed to interest more students to sign up for spring semester.

The workshop included a campus visit by Dutch stu­dents, said Christine Dornbusch, interim educa­tion abroad adviser.

“They had nearly 15 stu­dents show up to the first workshop,” Dornbusch said.

“(The Dutch visitors) loved the enthusiasm of the Minnesota State Mankato students. It was really excit­ing for them.”

In partnership with HAN University, Minnesota State Mankato chose five students this week from majors such as information systems, technical commu­nication or graphic design to study abroad during the 2013 spring semester.

Caryn Lindsay, director of the International Programs Office, said 35 students showed interest in the pro­gram.

The students going to the Netherlands will join buro302, which is HAN’s student-run consulting firm that provides real-world multi-media marketing expe­rience for students while they complete their degrees. The five students taking part in the program this fall arrived in the Netherlands in August and also have been working on buro302.

The program is good for students studying communications, graphic design, computer programming or animation, among other things, Dornbusch said.

“This is a brand new kind of exchange we have,” Dornbusch said. “ They’ve been going primarily to business school in the past.” HAN also sends Dutch students to study at Minnesota State Mankato in the business and sport management programs. The colleges also are looking into expanding the program to have HAN students come to work with Project Maverick. Project Maverick is a software consulting organization that began in 2006 as a way for students to write computer code and test software. The organization is a partnership between Maverick Software Consulting, MSU and Thomson-Reuters company in Eagan.

The collaboration between Minnesota State Mankato and HAN grew out of Minnesota State Mankato professors’ visit to the country.

Computer information sciences professors Leon Tietz, Cyrus Azarbod and Mababur Syed visited the Netherlands with financial support from the Kearney International Center and Minnesota State Mankato's strategic funding efforts.

More than 50 students have been involved in the exchange to the Netherlands since 2005, including students in sports management, business, computer information science, automotive engineering and education.

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